


Names Like Prayers

by atlas (cissysullivan)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-30
Updated: 2013-03-30
Packaged: 2017-12-06 22:38:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/740962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cissysullivan/pseuds/atlas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An old man reflects on a relationship he's witnessed between two boys for eight years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Names Like Prayers

The old man stared at the two boys walking down the path at the park. He didn’t come here often, but he came often enough that he recognized these boys. Well, they weren’t really boys anymore and he hadn’t exactly been an old man when he’d first noticed them. They’d long since become men. The look in their eyes, the square of their shoulders, and the way they held themselves showed that. They’d been through too much. In many ways the old man was certain they were as weary of the world as he was, perhaps even more so, but he only saw them in passing every couple of months and he thought that was hardly enough to know them by.

            And yet, whenever he saw them, he knew that their relationship was more than they were letting on to anyone else around them. It was the simple gestures between the two of them that made this evident to the old man. It was the way the taller one’s fingers brushed against the back of the shorter one’s hand. Or the way the shorter one placed his palm gently on the small of the other’s back. Or how they never took their eyes off the other for more than a couple of minutes, almost as though they were terrified the world was going to snatch them away from each other.

            The old man hadn’t been around long enough to be able to truly understand the nature of a man loving another man or a woman loving another woman, but he knew it happened, he knew it was possible and he also knew that it was love, just the same as the love he’d felt for his wife before she became sick and died in his arms after only a couple years of marriage and an eternity of knowing they were meant to be together. The way the two boys looked at each other…that was how he’d looked at his wife when he knew she was dying, but also knew that he was lucky to have her with him now.

            He watched the boys sit in the parking lot on the hood of their car, pull out a cooler and two beers, clink them together and then stare up at the clouds, sometimes pointing one out and then debating on what it looked like. If the old man didn’t know any better, he’d think they were brothers. A voice in his head told him brothers couldn’t have the kind of relationship that these two clearly did, but another one, one that was far more powerful and had only grown stronger since the death of his wife, whispered, _Should that really matter? They’re in love. Love is love. No matter whom with._

            The old man was content with this voice’s answer. Preferred it, in fact. It sounded like something his wife would have said. And as he watched the boys continue to stare into the summer sky, their eyes seeming to take equal time between the clouds and each other, their fingers always finding reasons to make their way back to the other, he smiled. He was witnessing love in its purest form. There were few people would ever experience it much less see it and he was lucky enough that he’d gotten to be a part of both. He was certain the boys were happy together, despite the hardships they’d clearly shared.

            By the time the boys got up and decided it was time to leave the park and by the time the old man decided he should probably go home and feed his cats before making himself some dinner, the sky was growing dark, the clouds were harder to see and the first stars were making their appearance. The old man forced himself to his feet, wincing slightly. He wasn’t as young as he’d once been. He was growing older every day. His bones creaked in protest after having sat for so long. He was just turning to leave when he heard it, the shorter boy speaking the taller boy’s name.

            “Sammy…”

            And immediately the old man paused.

            It wasn’t the first time the old man had heard him speak the other’s name, but every time he did he found that it was a blessing. Both boys said their brother’s name like a prayer.


End file.
